I first started this blog due to "popular demand" for me to to share my cooking and quilting results in blog form as it was easier for friends and people who know me to see what I'm up to, especially compared to just an image hosting site. Now I blog because I enjoy sharing what I do and hope that I do in some way inspire people to try new things out as well.

Pages

Saturday, 6 June 2015

Ornament of the month - June!

June brings not just one ornament pattern but 4! As there are several
different birthstones - it depends who you ask what they are so I
designed a pattern for each of them. Pearl is one of the most frequently mentioned ones but there is also Moonstone and Alexandrite. Alexandrite is a special stone as it changes colour depending on which light source it's seen in - daylight gives a completely different colour from artificial light, and each artificial light gives another tint too! I've been stitching away like mad
in the background to try and get them all done in time but I had to
stick to "only" finish finishing 3 and finishing the stitching of
another before publishing the pattern though I did manage to finish finish the pink Alexandrite last night.

I still need to make an ornament finish of the green Alexandrite so I
have one larger ornament for the collection and I'm planning on making
the larger version of the Pearl and Moonstone ornaments on dark blue
even weave fabric so the white threads show up better. I am not planning
on making a larger Pink Alexandrite ornament - I just don't like pink.

A large part of the reasons for the different fabrics is because I only
have a limited amount of the fabric I chose for the ornaments. The pink
Alexandrite pattern was stitched on white 18ct Aida as I just didn't
have enough to make 4 ornaments this month. A choice had to be made and
my dislike of pink made the choice easy.

I wasn't going to finish the embroidery as anything initially - but I do always stitch a sample of my patterns as I like to make sure they look the way I want them to, and for the pink I was glad I did as my original backstitching looked awful and I love how the tree/mistletoe like branches look that I thought of instead.

The only reason I finish finished the pink Alexandrite embroidery is because of the wonderful beads I found in my stash that are just perfect for it that Carla had sent and how could I then not make a biscornu to make the most of the amazing beads?

I linked all my garland ornaments together and hung them and my ornaments in my wonderful apple tree (which if you look closely is bursting with possible apples). All 8 garland ornaments together make for a long garland - just what I need for my huge Christmas tree! Only 6 more months till I have all my ornaments done - I can't wait to see them wrapped around my Christmas tree!

I hope you have been enjoying making the ornaments and hope that anyone who has made them and not posted them on deviant art lets me know here in a comment about them - I'm dying to see them! If you are on Deviant Art and I have not faved them then please drop me a note - I'd LOVE to add them to my collection! My dA account can be found here: Magical525. The usual suspects do not of course need to tell me as I already know about them (No, I'm totally not thinking of Leonore, Nancy and Carla noooooo not at alll)

I love the ornaments, all of them! But I think the pink one might even be my favourite of the batch, so it's lucky we decided on that one for my 12-sided-thing. Though I'll have to wait for threads once again, but that only means more happy ornament stitching later!